Core Public Health Services

In 2008, the Colorado Public Health Act required the State Board of Health to establish, by rule, the core public health services that each county and district public health agency must provide or ensure, as well as establish minimum quality standards for those public health services. The original Core Public Health Services and minimum quality standards, effective November 30, 2011, can be accessed here.

In 2018, Colorado revised the state's original Core Public Health Services (CPHS) framework to better align with the national Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS) framework. The FPHS framework components consist of foundational capabilities and services that represent a subset of all public health services. The CPHS framework already included over 75% of the FPHS model components. This large amount of agreement in the frameworks resulted in minimal customizations required to fully align the two frameworks to result in the current Colorado foundational public health services framework.

The new ruling, effective January 1, 2020, now requires state and local health departments in Colorado to ensure provision of seven Foundational Capabilities and five Foundational Services, which are listed below. You can read about the new Foundational Public Health Services and Capabilities in 6 CCR 1014-7 Core Public Health Services revised statute. 

There were three customizations needed to align CPHS with FPHS: 

• CPHS Vital Records became a function within FPHS Assessment and Planning. The FPHS capability name was modified from Assessment/Surveillance to Assessment and Planning.
• CPHS Prevention and Population Health Promotion split into two foundational services: (1) Chronic Disease, Injury Prevention, and Behavioral Health Promotion, and (2) Maternal, Child, Adolescent, and Family Health.
• CPHS Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health was added as a foundational capability instead of existing as a function within Organizational Competencies.

Additional resources are available to support your agency in learning about the revised Core Public Health Services: 

• See the LPHA Training webpage for The Intro to Core Public Health Services training.
• Click here for a visual of the CPHS-FPHS alignment
• Click here for the Core Public Health Services Operational Definitions Manual (May 2019)